One of the few excursions I took whilst staying in Prague, was to
Terezin, a former Nazi Concentration camp near the German Border. I had
met a Danish couple the night before, & they had said they were wishing to go there, I of course volunteered to go along
with them. Taking the bus out of Prague, the trip took one hour. The
countryside along the way was mostly uneventful, just gentle hills along
with farmland.
Eventually we arrived at the bus stop located in front of the Terezin
labour camp. Unlike Auschwitz, which was an annihilation camp, this was a forced labour
camp. Where as inmates were sent to Auschwitz to die, here they came to be worked,
albeit many times to death. And that was often the case, at the height of
the camp's fervor, 55 prisoners a day were dying due to starvation,
disease, or simply being overworked.
Walking towards the camp, the first thing that you notice is the large
cemetery outside before the entrance to the actual camp. A large cross dominates the first part of the cemetery, this is where the Christians are buried. The middle part of the cemetery is where the unknown tombs are to be found, where as the end is dominated by a large Star of David, this of course being where the Jews
are buried. I found it comical how the same division that's been a partial cause for every war in the last thousand years, is as evident
in people's burials as it had been in the wars themselves. Buried separately,
and for what purpose, they died together, are they not enough the same people to have been buried together?
What was so important that the Jews, & the Christians couldn't share the
same hallowed ground of this most brutal of places where they shared the end of their lives?
The same thought process by which men separate themselves on grounds of
religion is a dangerous type of thinking as it directly leads to brutality
such as the concentration camps themselves.
Moving on, the camp itself is a solemn, & dreary place. The houses where the prisoners lived are wholly miserable, bunk beds
six-levels high, wooden frames where hundreds of inmates would pass their
time in malnourishment, & ailment. Unlike a lot of other camps, this camp was mainly inhabited by political prisoners, & freedom fighters, meaning the Jewish population was low.
The majority of the camp's prisoners were of Czech nationality, suffering
the German occupation of their homeland. Seeing as the camp's main
responsibility was making weapons to further the German war machine, a lot of the camp is buried underground in bunkers
that served to protect it from Allied bomb attacks. Again this is another
circumstance in which this camp varies from others such as Auschwitz.
Located just across from the Terezin prison camps, lies the Terezin
Ghetto, a Jewish ghetto where most followers of Judaism in the Czech Republic were re-located during the occupation. The city of Prague alone lost 80,000 Jews,
of which the Terezin ghetto received 60,000, of whom only 10,000 would survive. Most however were not sent to the
aforementioned prison camp, as only 1,800 Jews passed through the camp.
Sadly most of the Jews living in the ghetto were sent to either Dachau or
Auschwitz.
Visiting the city is a heart-breaking experience, especially when you venture into the Jewish morgue. Buried underneath the city, to reach it you follow a series of caves, with the morgue itself being located in a cavern. A large Star of David sits in the corner, & there are a few plaques to commemorate the deceased.
There are even a few jars filled with actual human ashes in a corner of the morgue.
The dark lighting, as well as the silence of the location create a very
austere experience.
The Jewish crematorium as well as cemetery for citizens of the ghetto, is just around the corner
from the morgue but on street level outside of the caverns. Upon entering the cemetery you will see a sign that says no one allowed without proper Jewish attire, this meaning
a cap for men. And now we are back to the point of how keeping us as people separate only further serves to allow hate to build, & relationships to be destroyed.
If we are not allowed to mingle, we cannot help but hate, as is human
nature we hate what we don't understand. What I find impossible to comprehend is how major religions, & ordinary
people can't come to this realization themselves. For how could a Muslim hate you if you
don't hate them, & you make it known to them. How can you hate a Jew, when
they love you, & are your next-door neighbours? You can't. Sadly large religions, & political leaders, don't
wish us to mingle, they don't want us to escape this thought prison we've been held hostage in for so many years, they don't
want us to fathom actuality, & realize that we all as people are
perpetually the same, identical in our fears, in our hopes, & persona.
Everyone is afraid to die, everyone wonders what will come next, we've all
just adapted different theories, these being religion or lack thereof.
Prejudice, although I had always hoped, it would be gone in my lifetime
seems ever present. I will tell you though that you should never believe
that there is a single type of person who doesn't face discrimination, for
we all do, & it is possible that as a species we always will. And once
again we find common ground that humanity is united in facing, facing the
very things that keep us divided, yet we face these challenges alone not
realizing that all humankind is aligned. Maybe one day someone will
understand the unison of the human race, with all our turbulent,
meaningless struggles, & the hatred will stop, but I'm afraid that's a
long way off.
This concentration camp serves as a brutal reminder to the history of the world, however one would be mistaken if they view this as a testament to the wickedness of
the German race, as blame should be placed squarely on the Nazi political
party. Besides history as well as the present have taught us, the evilness
of man can never be pinned to one nationality, ethnicity, or religion.
For instance; The British in the Boer War in fact employed the world’s first concentration camps, the concentration camps being used to detain
the women, & children of Afrikaans descent in order to make the
fighting men lay down arms in the uprising. These camps were often just as
atrocious as the future Nazi camps would come to be. Even during World War
2, the fate of a Jewish person caught trying to flee Europe for refuge in
Palestine, then a British territory, was a rather grim destiny as well. As the British would send them to a concentration camp on the island of Mauritius thousands of miles off the coast of southern Africa. Where they would serve out their sentence
for having-done-nothing-wrong for the duration of the war.
Consideration should also be taken of the American concentration camps, or internment camps as the
"winners" so fondly refer to them as, of the Japanese-American citizens. Do not fool yourself into thinking that these were camps filled with
homes surrounded by white picket fences. As they were concentration camps
in every sense of the word. Conditions were poor, and the prisoners
received less than 50 cents of food rations per day. Canada as well participated in the madness, however for once in
recent history Canada actually took something a step further than America.
For in Canada unlike in America a Japanese family would be separated, with the men sent to labour
camps in the far north of British Columbia to build roads, & train tracks,
and the women & children would be thousands of miles apart in prison camps
further to the south, not able to see their husbands, & fathers until the end of the war.
Once more I shall further illustrate the malevolence of humanity; After
the Terezin concentration camp was liberated in 1945 by a combined force
of Czechs & Soviets, the Czechs found it to be a perfect time to take
recourse on the Czech population of German ethnicity (in spite of the fact
that most were against the war themselves), as well as do a little ethnic
cleansing & rid their nation of the Hungarian "problem". Yes even in
liberation this camp could not find relief from the sickness of power.
Two-thousand innocent prisoners died at this camp after the end of
hostilities in what was the Czech "final solution". In an even more
harrowing twist to this story, all of the actions were approved by the
Allied commanders, including Eisenhower himself.
The point of my tirade was not to diminish the excessive cruelty faced by those at the hands of the Nazis, but to remind those individuals who so keenly place all of their hate on the German people even today 60 years later
as many do, that they were not alone in the perpetration of cruel acts.
Sadly humanity seems to be filled with such acts. What the Germans did was reprehensible, but in World War 2, like most other wars, there
was no good, there was just better, with the Germans of course being on
the side of the worse.
Review written by the assistant travel writer; Dakota Smith.
This editorial in its entirety is the sole property of
Travelers Digest and may not be distributed, sold or copied without prior
written permission of Travelers Digest and/or its licensed
representatives.